<a href="https://www.oatext.com/which-environment-makes-cancer.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.oatext.com/which-environment-makes-cancer.php</a><p>Always a good read, most cancers are environmental, and most of these are caused by obesity, bad diet and smoking/drinking, fix these four things in your life and you reduce your chances of getting cancer by 50%+
I don't think that anything you said is wrong, but I also think it's important to note that on a long enough timeline your odds of getting cancer are 100% regardless of the way you live.Most people just don't live that long.<p>The things you mention here make it happen sooner, but no amount of healthy living lowers your risk to zero and I think that's important to note when you say things like "cancer is caused by".<p>Cancer is caused by math. This stuff just steepens the slope.
It's also important to note that getting a random cancer at 80+ sucks orders of magnitude less than going out at 45 from colon or throat cancer in every measurable metrics you can come up.
Cool, let's make that timeline a step function with the risk of cancer being effectively zero until 200 years of life and cure cancer.
> I don't think that anything you said is wrong, but I also think it's important to note that on a long enough timeline your odds of getting cancer are 100% regardless of the way you live.Most people just don't live that long.<p>“Most people just don’t live that long” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.
> If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.<p>Well, 100% likelihood is a bit silly, but the point of the person you were responding to is true -- we will all eventually die of something, and if it's not heart disease or dementia, it will almost certainly be cancer.<p>The question shouldn't be "will I get cancer?"; it should be, "how long do I want to live a happy, healthy, active, independent lifestyle for?" If you exercise, eat a healthy diet, don't become overweight and keep your blood pressure low, you'll maximise your changes for living well, for as long as possible.
> If you have a healthy lifestyle you would need to live for multiple centuries to reach 100% likelihood.<p>This kind of comment lowers the level of discourse dramatically.
And not just cancer. Top risk factors for dementia and heart disease are also diet, obesity, blood pressure, and lack of exercise.<p>Basically, live healthily, and you'll have a (much!) happier and longer life.
I always get a kick out of YouTube and other social media people proclaiming what is "healthy" or not, when we all pretty much know. Eat fruits and vegetables and not too much junk food. Eating too much consistently isn't good for you. Drinking and smoking are bad for you. We've mostly known smoking is bad as a society for a good while now and outside of the old myth that a glass of wine with dinner was good, we know drinking isn't a positive for your health.<p>And you don't even have to be hard and fast with any of that. Drink on occasion and eat stuff that isn't good for you on occasion and you're probably still getting 95% of the benefits. Not sure about smoking though.<p>It's very simple at the end of the day. Simple != easy to do. Drinking is fun. People enjoy smoking. Junk food is appealing because it's relatively cheap and tastes good.<p>The best biohack is to eat like your doctor recommends while we all nod along and silently ignore. Just eat what is widely accepted as good for you and you'll have a good chance at living a happy, healthy life.
What's interesting is how low alcohol ranks compared to obesity and diet. It makes the recent moral panic following loose interpretations of the Lancet study seem hypocritical, if not misguided. If anything deserves a "may cause cancer" sticker, it's nitrate-ridden processed meat.
Is there really a moral panic? Apart from a few viral Twitter posts, I don't see a major sobriety push by my colleagues.<p>Profits of main alcohol suppliers has certainly taken a hit over the last 5 years but this is arguably far more because of rise of remote working, inflation (drinking at pubs have become much more costly than before) and people in general just addicted to their phone rather than going out (similar to the impact on almost all social activities no just going to pubs)
Nitrate ridden processed meat already has a “may cause cancer” sticker on it (unless you mean a literal sticker warning when you buy meat from stores?):<p><a href="https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/red_meat" rel="nofollow">https://progressreport.cancer.gov/prevention/diet_alcohol/re...</a><p><a href="https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Red-Meat-And-Processed-Meat-2018" rel="nofollow">https://publications.iarc.who.int/Book-And-Report-Series/Iar...</a>
I like to drink. With that being said, there are a lot of downsides to alcohol other than an increased risk of cancer. Also, alcohol can lead to obesity and a bad diet. Is it ever healthy to drink? I do not know. I am going to do it anyway though.
> Is it ever healthy to drink?<p>No. But drinking every now and then makes so little difference it's not a huge concern. Drinking a lot, though -- that's more problematic.<p>Like most of my friends around my age, I've cut out almost all alcohol in the last few years. None of us miss it. But it's still nice to drink occasionally, and I'm not going to stop entirely.
There's downsides to heavy or frequent drinking, sure. But since the cancer risk is minimal, what's the downside of a glass of wine or beer a couple of times a week?<p>I'm less convinced of the negatives of this than I used to be. Humans are quite well adapted to alcohol.<p>If it's something you enjoy, I'd say go for it, in moderation. It's probably less unhealthy than e.g. living in a city, eating processed meat, or working an office job.
Recent demographic shifts have given rise to a vocally anti-alcohol contingent in large parts of the Western world. There's substantial motivated reasoning.
for anybody else wondering: the environmental factors mentioned in the article (<a href="https://www.oatext.com/img/ORR-1-115-g001.gif" rel="nofollow">https://www.oatext.com/img/ORR-1-115-g001.gif</a>) are:<p>diet, tobacco, infections, obesity, alcohol, others